Senate passes Armenian Genocide resolution

WASHINGTON—Congress formally acknowledged for the first time that Turkey’s 1915 slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians, many of them Christians, constituted genocide. The U.S. Senate unanimously passed the nonbinding resolution on Thursday shortly after a committee advanced a bill to sanction Turkey for its military incursion against Kurdish forces in Syria and its purchase of a Russian S-400 missile system. Resolution co-sponsor Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said he was glad the Senate “finally honored the 1.5 million innocent lives lost.”

Why did the recognition take so long? Turkey has pushed against the United States recognizing the genocide for years, warning it could jeopardize the relationship between the two countries. Republicans blocked the resolution three times in so many weeks under pressure from the Trump administration. A Turkish spokesman called the resolution’s passage “damaging.”

Dig deeper: From the WORLD archives, read Marvin Olasky’s historic look at the Armenian Genocide.